Atlas
by tinseltowns
Summary: Just a story that started out as a writing exercise turned MSR. "Drawing a map?"


**Note: **So, this is the first thing I've posted in what seems like an eternity. I've never really written for The X-Files, which is why this is probably horrid. I got the idea from a writing prompt, and Mulder and Scully (at least I feel) are applicable in virtually every situation.

This doesn't really have a set timeline, though if I were to choose one, possibly sometime around season 5 or 6 (just because those are my favorite seasons to date)?  
Anyways, enjoy.

* * *

The backs of his hands were a tan color, which matched that of his forearms. The pigmentation had come to be due to the fact that he was the primary driver on their cases, which exposed him to the windshield-filtered rays of sun moreso than her. A monument to his stress and anxiety, his nailbeds were virtually obsolete, while the chipped and chewed remnants of his nails, much like himself, clung for dear life to his fingertips. His palms were calloused and rough, and the lines scattered along their surface were deep enough to be mistaken for scarring. With cuticles permanently scabbed over and slightly bloody, Scully imagined every woman at her nail salon in an uproar. She smiled to herself.

At that moment, entrapped in the basement quarters they shared, Mulder's hands were entangled in his hair. She looked on with a silent, almost secretive, fascination as he gripped and pulled at the dark brown strands, noticeably still damp from his morning shower. Keeping up a half-yanking, half-twirling pattern, he paused at random intervals to flip a page in the case file he'd begun to bury himself in, or to wipe the water from his fingers onto his suit.

Not once in the hour and a half that they'd been in the same vicinity did he say anything but a routine "good morning"; she found it unusual, and had run upstairs to grab him a coffee, making the fair assumption he hadn't yet had one. On a typical morning, her caffeinated partner would be bouncing off the walls, frantically waving his hands around as he explained in vivid detail the events that had ensued in his dreams (whose details were sometimes too vivid for comfort). When the coffee had been placed on his desk, not more than a nod came from him, and while his free hand attacked it's nails, the steam emitting from the beverage began to dwindle.

Scully's forearms rested on the wooden surface of her desk, hands folded and held together neatly by one another. Stoic, and giving the aura of a well-behaved child in a classroom, she broke her fixated gaze on her partner to toy with her fresh coat of burgundy nail polish. Rarely did she tamper with a manicure, but she found it almost impossible not to; she blamed it on watching him practically rip off his thumbnail with his teeth across the room. She chipped away at the color, studying absentmindedly the way her palms curled up and melted together, the lines within becoming nearly as deep as Mulder's. Biting her cheek, she moved her fingers to trace the lines, as she had done with his hands a few times prior. Of course, his were much larger in comparison, far more calloused and weathered.

Smaller, softer, and well-maintained. She'd described herself in a nutshell. Meanwhile, Mulder still hadn't said a word, and he'd bitten so far through the nail that it'd begun to bleed; he didn't seem to notice.

"You're bleeding," she echoed, her voice cutting through the deafening silence of their last-floor confinement. Mulder looked up in a near-startled manner, as if he was wondering if she was talking to him or someone else; maybe he'd forgotten she was there with him, and he'd thought he was alone. It wasn't unlikely. His mouth was slightly agape, and droplets of blood had accumulated on the skin of his lips. He licked his bottom lip, and the copper taste resonated immediately; he looked almost amused. Scully rolled her eyes, shaking her head as he shrugged it away. "Do I need to recommend a manicurist?"

Mulder chuckled, taking his turn to shake his head. "Is it that bad, Scully?" Studying the dried blood that had spread across his fingers, he admired the pattern of faded red lines that vaguely matched the color on Scully's nails. "I think I'm a lost cause," he chided, his gaze returning to her. Swinging his feet from their place atop one of the many cabinets lined along the wall, he turned to face his partner, flashing her the tattered remnants of his nails, a childlike grin on his face. Unable to resist reciprocating the gesture, she smiled in return, cupping her face in her hands and propping her elbows up on her desk.

Her eyes momentarily fixated on the deepened lines of his palms, the chasms that lined the landscapes of his skin. With parts coated with a thin layer of maroon liquid, his skin looked more rough than usual, if possible. Returning to his nails, she couldn't help but smile at his over-enthusiastic quips. "It's a terrible habit, you know," she teased.

Mulder feigned a look of shock, his hand flying to his chest. "Me and terrible habits?" he mused, "What an utterly shocking combination. I just don't know what I'll do with myself." Scully giggled, motioning for him to move closer. With what could've been called instinctive, he picked up his chair, moving it to the front of the desk, sitting directly opposite her. Teeth attacking her lower lip, she reached across to take his hand in both of her own, running her fingertips over his skin, matching it to her own. Scully turned over his hand, tracing the outline of the inner part of his hand, over his fingers, across the jutting pads of his fingers, and between the toughened surfaces of his palms.

"Drawing a map?" he posed, though did not protest. Scully didn't take notice, and continued the motion, her thoughts wrapped up in the varying textures of her partner. She remembered how he'd never finished his coffee, and how it was probably ice cold by now, or at least lukewarm – either way, undrinkable. She didn't seem to mind much, but found herself tracing coffee cups and cliché steaming vapors onto his hands.

It was still rather early in the day, the clock on the office wall reading 9:34. With no specific case in hand for the time being, they had virtually all day to kill. "Do you want to go hit up that Starbucks down the street?" Mulder suggested. The suggestion of a caffeine refill was enough to break Scully out of her trance, and he couldn't help but laugh. A playful piercing gaze from her and the sound of her chair grinding across the linoleum was enough of an answer, and he felt her hands slowly slip away.

"You're buying," she muttered, snatching her coat from the back of her seat, slipping it on. Nodding, he fixed his tie, and held out his arm; playful chivalry. Scully fastened the last button on her peacoat, linked her arm with her partner's, and took off out the door towards the lone elevator in the basement. Pressing her lips to a line, she moved her hand up Mulder's arm, and took his hand in her's once more.


End file.
